#52Ancestors 2019 Week 9 At the Courthouse: Settling the Estate of William Wood

#52 Ancestors 2019 Week 9 At the Courthouse: Settling the Estate of William Wood

Chancery Court has turned out to be one of my best resources as a genealogist.  This is where disputes over estates go to be settled, and that often means that the decedents's family is spelled out in detail for several generations.  That was definitely true in the case of William Wood of Anne Arundel County MD.

William Wood was born in St. James Parish, Anne Arundel County MD 14 April 1734.  He died in Anne Arundel County MD sometime before December 1805, according to this notice from the Maryland Gazette.  And, since Henry Wood and Thomas Sullivan are the administrators, rather than the executors of his estate, he didn't leave a will.  So no luck there in getting information about his family, except that Henry and Thomas are probably related to him.

As you might imagine, there are many men named William Wood in Anne Arundel County, so sorting out their connections or lack of connections is a real challenge.  Fortunately for me, the particular William Wood I was interested in left property that needed to be sold in order to settle his estate.  This involved a long list of his heirs.  Yeah!  The notice below, which appeared in the Maryland Gazette, naturally inspired me to go down to the State Archives and find the original court papers in order to get more detail.

William Wood owned several large properties in Anne Arundel County: Broughton Ashley, Hunt's Mount, and Carter Bennett. He died without a will in May of 1804 and his heirs want to sell the property in order to distribute the estate among William's many heirs, conveniently listed in the bill of complaint.  Basically, the older heirs are suing the younger heirs to get consent for the sale. This is not really because of a dispute, but to protect the rights of the minors.

So here is the bounty of information about William's heirs:

His children:

• John Wood (the eldest)
• Henry Wood
• Samuel Wood
• Robert Wood
• Sarah Sullivan
• Mary Whittington
• Dorothy Sunderland
• Richard Wood (who apparently left Maryland some nine years before this suit and hasn't been heard from since)

His grandchildren:

• Margaret and Cassandra, daughters of deceased son William Wood
• Elizabeth,Eleanor and Sarah (acutally Samuel), children of deceased son James Wood
• Benjamin, John, Rhody and Susanna Whittington, children of deceased daughter Susanna, wife of William Whittington
• Susanna, Samuel, Anne and Wilfred Parrot,the children of deceased daughter Anne, wife of Richard Parrott

Note that the grandchildren only come into play here because their parent, a child of William Wood is deceased. 

By 1806, when the estate is finally settled, each child (or their respective children) gets $416.55 as his or her share.  The final settlement also reveals a little more information about the spouses of the married daughters.

So, altogether, definitely worth the trip to the Archives.